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Book Reviews of The Spectator Bird

The Spectator Bird
The Spectator Bird
Author: Wallace Stegner
ISBN-13: 9780140139402
ISBN-10: 0140139400
Publication Date: 11/1/1990
Pages: 224
Rating:
  • Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
 27

3.7 stars, based on 27 ratings
Publisher: Penguin
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

4 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

Paul-RLT avatar reviewed The Spectator Bird on + 176 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Reads like an autobiography but is fiction. The main story deals with an older man (and his wife) coping with the brutal realities of old age. The story within the story is a flashback - decades earlier - to a Denmark trip when they lived with a countess and slowly learned the bizarre secrets of her family.
reviewed The Spectator Bird on + 3 more book reviews
Ah, another excellent book from Stegner. In this one and another I read, it feels as though he's writing nonfiction, it's so real. A note from an acquaintance from 20 years ago sends Joe to his notebooks to read about another time in his life. He and his wife visited Denmark -- he grasping for something of his mother and his roots. What he finds is quite different and yet related. The story has plenty of wry humor and also sadness but with an upbeat luminous lining for at least some of the characters.

Stegner's books are such a pleasure to read that I don't want them to end. So, I've ordered most of what he's written, aside from what I've already read. This book is a National Book Award winner and Stegner is a Pulitzer Prize winner. I highly recommend any of his books to those who enjoy literary, soulful writing. I can't think of an author that has his gift for illuminating things we never talk about but all of us know or feel, the grit of this human experience. And he does it elegantly.
reviewed The Spectator Bird on + 628 more book reviews
Not my favorite
Stegner novel, which is still "Big Rock Candy Mountain".
reviewed The Spectator Bird on + 3 more book reviews
Beautifully written about an aging couple remembering a long ago trip. My book club enjoyed it.